My lousy welding

deacon

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Most of the time a percentage of my welds hold and a percentage don't hold. I have no idea why that is. Here is an example. I welded four L brackets onto two pusher bike rails. Three of the four are doing just fine. One fell off before I got around the first curve. Nothing at all was different about those welds. I think I am going to try grinding the matal where it joins before I weld it. Maybe there is some contaminate present that I'm not seeing.
 
No but it is that hardware store L brackets and square channel this time. I think that stuff is coated with something to at least delay rust. If it was the welder or the technique it would fail more often. It has to be something else. I also might be removing the clamps too soon.

I am going to make some notes as to what I do with different pieces to see which ones hold and which ones don't
 
Deacon try to make shure you have a good ground,grind a spot on the metal and ground to that.Also be shure your rods are dry.You can wrap them in foil and put them in your oven at 200deg.for 30 min.see if it helps.HD
 
okay I'll give that a try.... Now it could be the ground since it gets moved from piece to piece. It might be getting a cold joint now and then.
 
deacon said:
okay I'll give that a try.... Now it could be the ground since it gets moved from piece to piece. It might be getting a cold joint now and then.
Click to expand...


Deac,
Those hardware store brackets are galvanized or cadmium plated. You can weld them but you should grind off the plating in the area of the weld. If you suspect there is galvanize, please don't breathe the fumes from the welding process. It is toxic. If you feel ill after welding drink plent of mike afterwards. This might sound weird but the milk will counteract the toxins in the galvanize.
There is no need to keep the clamps on after a weld. The metal will cool as quickly as you can lay down the stinger (rod holder) it's not like soldering that needs to cool to hold. Your welds are letting go because you are not getting good penetration to both pieces of material. Concentrate on watching the puddle and move it onto both surfaces as you drag it along. PM me if you have questions.
Tom
 
Deacon are you using an Oxygen Acetylene welder.
Grind the galvanized coating off weld outside don't breath the galvanized fumes, Deadly .

If you just have rust or paint still grind it off where you are going to weld.

Clamp everything tightly even with string LOL. So it wont move .

Ground rule.
Get off the ground . use a cinder block or a metal table to hld your stuff off the flooror ground.
 
I have a small cinder block table set up outside. I never weld inside fear of fire more than anything. the tip about the grinding I think is the problem. The puddle seems to hit everything. I had about decided that there was some kind of rust preventing thing going on that effected the weld.

thanks guys, I'm going to try grinding both pieces next time. This time I bolted the pieces then welded them into place. Just to keep them from moving around. I'm sure they will hold that combination has always held for me.

the clamp thingie is a good to know. I was trying to let them cool before I removed the clamp it's nice to no that I can get on with it.
 
Deacon, if you are using a wirefeed welder, make sure your polarity is correct for flux core wire (or gas shielding if you are using that). The polarity is opposite for the two and using the wrong polarity makes for terrible welds.
 
I wanted to thank you guys for the advice. I think I might have it working better now. What I began doing is to clamp it up good, then put the angle grinder to work on the seam. That is I grind the base as well as the edge of the piece I plan to weld. So far it seems to be holding.

I think those pieces from the hardware store must have been dipped in something. Anyway the last few welds I have made seem to be holding pretty well without the backup bolts.

So thanks everyone for the advice. I'm sure I will be back again.
 
just be careful of the galvanize.. if your outdoors or indoors, it doesn't matter.. that smoke you see coming up on the inside of your mask is burning metal, and galvanize and it will kill you if you inhale to much... they do make welders masks and there cheap enough
 
Ah I had no idea that welding outside was still dangerous. The guy who got me started just said don't weld indoors because of the fumes. For me it's also the fire hazard. I already set the house on fire once.
 
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